


Fall Out

by Currentofsass



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Drug Use, Fall Out Boy AU, Fall Out Boy Lyrics, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Stalking Themes, sex work mention
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 02:10:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 11,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5809663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Currentofsass/pseuds/Currentofsass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alfred had never heard of the band Fall Out Boy, but his life was beginning to sound like one of their albums.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Oh, Sugar (Honey Iced Tea)

**August 12, 2005**

If I was being honest with myself, this had to be one of the worst things I had ever done.

Ever.

Not only had I broke into his house, I was no hiding in his closet, like a creep! Like, what part of this idea seemed logical or _okay_ on any level? Just because I liked the guy didn't mean I had the right to go and _spy on him!_ And there definitely had to be something wrong with me considering that I actually went through with the idea.

Shuffling my feet a bit in the crowded little space, I ran a hand through my hair as I thought over the absolutely perverted insanity that was happening. God, I had really messed up. Hopefully, none of the neighbors had seen me break in. But what if they did and had already called the cops on me? Matthew was going to kill me after he bailed me out.

 _Or I could just not be here when the cops showed up,_ I thought to myself, realizing the house was empty still. Gently pushing the closet door open, I stepped back out into Arthur's oddly tidy bedroom. Its neatness was probably due to the fact that there was so much stuff in his closet to be honest. _If I'm just not here, then really nothing happened, right? No harm, no foul. I haven't completely screwed up yet, right?_ It was a failing attempt to calm myself, to justify that it wasn't so bad because I wasn't actually going to stick around to actually spy on him or anything.

Starting down the short hallway that led to the rest of the apartment, I wiped my hands on my jeans a bit. _This is such a stupid idea. What was I even thinking?_ I hoped that after a couple years this could be something that I could just laugh privately about to myself. Finally reaching the end of the hall, I froze as the sound of the front door opening reached my ears. _Crap._ I thought panicked, as two voices followed it.

"You're sure the walls are soundproof?" an all familiar French accent asked, as I spun on my heel as silently as possible towards Arthur's room. _Why did I go through with this?_

"Who cares if they aren't?" I heard just before I quietly as possible shut Arthur's door. _Please don't let them catch me. Please, just don't let them catch me._ I begged whoever was receiving the message and cared enough to help me out even a little bit. Hopping back into my hiding place, I got the bi-fold door back into place just as the door started to creak slightly as it opened.

 _Please don't come into the closet for anything. Please don't come into the closet._ Squeezing my eyes shut in an attempt to keep myself from crying, panic slowly began to overwhelm me. I had officially screwed up and was now the biggest pervert of all time. Great.

The spring mattress creaked a bit as weight was put on it. I could hear the muffled sound of something in French being whispered, sound followed by the intimate sounds of a makeout session. Awesome. Wow. I had gotten myself into the most awkward situation possible and had no idea how to get out of it. There was no undo button, no magical device that would let me pick back up from my last save point and avoid this altogether. Nothing. I was hiding in the closet of a guy I was hopelessly enamored with as he was about to probably have sex with the person he'd been secretly dating for the last three years.

After a minute or so of the sound of kissing not stopping, I cracked one of my eyes open, hoping that maybe I could find someway to escape. Instead, I ended up just peering through the openings between the boards of the door, and curiosity got the better of me.

Francis straddled Arthur, who was being pushed down into the bed, with his tongue probably going down his throat. Arthur had one hand knitted through Francis' hair while the other fiddled with something on the bedside table. His shirt was pushed up over his stomach and I could see his underwear through his already undone pants.

As gross as it was to see two people I knew personally hooking up, I couldn't ignore the knot growing in my stomach, like there was just something unnervingly wrong with the whole scene...other than me watching them from the closet. Part of me was just _dying_ to be that stupid Frenchman for a moment, to be someone Arthur actually felt attraction towards. To actually mean something to him other than just a coworker. Other than just a friend. Part of me wanted to be the friction in his jeans.

And the other part of me knew just how messed up it was.

The sudden entrance of music pulled me out of my own thoughts. It was way too loud to be good for your ears but it was a blessing, eventually. At first, it just scared me, enough that a couple tears actually slipped down my cheeks, but that's not really important. What's almost important was the fact that I still stood there for half the song, watching the two of them undress each other like the total creep I was becoming.

Slowly becoming less and less comfortable with what I was watching, my brain started searching for an escape route again. It didn't take long for the idea of sneaking out under the cover of the music to finally dawn on me. _It's loud enough that they won't hear me. I can barely hear myself think. They shouldn't hear me._ I thought to myself as I carefully pulled open the bi-fold. _Just hop out of here and book it. Hop out and book it. Hop out and book it._ That was the idea anyway. That's not how it worked out.

Again, probably the reason behind Arthur's room being unnaturally tidy was possibly due to the fact that he crammed so much stuff into his tiny little closet. It was that that lead to my downfall, _literally._

In the attempt to just quickly jump over the pile of stuff and sprint out the already open door, my foot got caught on the side of a box, sending me and it tumbling to the floor with a crash. _Ah, shit._

Flinching a bit, Arthur quickly shoved Francis off of him and stared at me with wide eyes. Perplexed, Francis only gave Arthur a look before his gaze shifted over to me. Without a word, I got up, and I ran. I ran out of the apartment, down the stairs, out of the building and I kept going until I was nearly back to my own apartment. My thoughts didn't catch up with reality until I was fumbling for my keys. Nothing processed at all until I got into the apartment where Matthew was making dinner and had no idea what I just did.

"Hey, you're back late. Where have you been?"

"Out," I said, noncommittally shrugging as I sat down tentatively on the couch. Matt didn't push the subject, oddly enough, and I didn't want to talk about it anyway. Though, in hindsight, I probably should have told him about it as it proceeded to eat away at me from the inside out for the rest of the night with the thoughts of having to see both Arthur and Francis face-to-face at some point in the next week.

_This was more than I bargained for._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is new! Don't expect any smut out of me. I ain't about that life and this is as close as I'm going to get to it probably.  
> My plan with this fic is to base each chapter after some lyrics of a song by Fall Out Boy. And you, dear reader, are more than welcome to recommend songs/lyrics to me for a chapter. The next couple chapters after this are going to describe the events leading up to this if you have any suggestions though I don't know when I may have time to get them out, if ever. And I'm going to try to keep the relatively brisk so that this feels like it's just all quick snippets of time rather than a full blown story.  
> Leave a review with a song and what you think of this so far. Should I continue with it? Should I delete this and pretend this never happened and we can all move on with our lives?  
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> UPDATE: I'm doing something new with the author's notes with the next chapter. Tell me what you think of it. If it's weird I'll take it out completely and give you all something normal.


	2. A Lot of F's

**July 3, 2005**

If I'm being entirely honest with myself, which I have a long history of _not doing_ , the catastrophic chain of events that would tear my life apart started at the "Fourth of July Office Party."

I hadn't wanted to go, it was the day before my birthday and at the time I knew literally no one in the office except my boss, Tim. But, _of course_ , Matt suggested that I should go anyway as it would be a chance for me to make connections, make some new friends, and I told him that I wasn't in the mood to be the socially awkward new guy. He insisted that I wouldn't be if I didn't try to be and eventually he legitimately shoved me out the door as a way to get me to go. I realize that he only meant the best, but looking back on it, I really wish he hadn't.

So I drove the twenty minutes to the building Tim had rented out for the party, and put on the friendly, happy facade that had gotten me the job in the first place. No, no, I'm not actually joking about this. Literally when I got hired, Tim actually said that he was "excited to find a bright and outgoing personality to brighten up the office." I managed to do that literally _only_ when Tim was around and it was working out pretty well for me so far though I had no idea how well I was going to keep it up during the party.

"It's nice to see that you decided to come, Alfred!" Tim greeted me cheerfully with a bellowing voice. I said something close to "Pleasure to be here" with a smile in return. Tim didn't attempt to make small talk with me, just led me over to a small group of coworkers, introduced me, and left me to my own devices. At first it was easy enough to keep the act up, I just had to continuously had to tell myself to act as though the conversation was _incredibly_ interesting, and that I was there of my own free-will. Obviously, neither of which were true and it led me to have to physically bite my tongue at points to prevent myself from saying something rude. Eventually, I managed to slip out of the conversation completely, wandering down towards the restrooms, bored.

Turning a corner, I came crashed into the moment that everything started to go downhill.

"Bloody-"

"Fu-"

"I'm sorry I didn't realize that-"

"No, no it's my fault. I wasn't paying attention and-"

"No, I really should have been more-"

You probably get the gist. We walked into each other, causing both of us to fall on our asses, and sputter out apologies. That's where I first met Arthur. Sounds like the introduction of some romcom, where eventually after my little excursion in Chapter One, Arthur and I have a heart-to-heart he dumps his boyfriend and then we end up together. The opposite happens, by the way.

As we began to stop apologizing so profusely, I made a bad attempt at small talk.

"I don't hear that accent much around here. Where are you from?"

_He's obviously English, Alfred!_

"Oh, I'm actually from New York. My mum was from England and since she homeschooled me for much of my early life, I picked up her accent."

_Or not..._

"That's neat! Where in New York are you from?"

"A small town near Albany."

"What brings you here then?"

"Just needed a change of scenery I guess." We stood awkwardly in a quiet, dimly lit hallway as I struggled to come up with anything to say to him.

"Do you usually come to office parties? I haven't seen you around much," he said, shifting the weight on his feet a bit.

"I was just hired a couple weeks ago."

"Oh."

_Well… This just got awkward._

"So I guess I'll see you around."

"Yeah, see you… I'm sorry I never caught your name?"

"I'm Alfred, Alfred Jones," I stated, smiling at him and holding out a hand.

"Arthur Kirkland, nice to meet you."

And then we walked away. So then why did I end up in his closet as he almost had sex with his boyfriend about a month later? It's what happened after I first met him that caused it.

* * *

At that point, it was drawing close to nine in the afternoon, and the sun was started its gradual process of disappearing behind the horizon. Around eight, someone had brought in alcohol. Tim didn't care in the slightest. In fact, by the time nine o'clock rolled around he was passed out next to the toilet. I had had _a_ beer, but that was mostly just to hold so that no one tried to offer me anything else.

There was no music, but some people were dancing anyway as if there was, totally hammered. The majority of the rest of them weren't too far behind. Needless to say, it was the most unprofessional I would see my extremely professional coworkers. And it was around that time that I found Arthur again. Now he wasn't dancing like there was actual music drunk, but he was definitely drunk, staring at his phone mumbling to it.

For some reason, I thought it was okay to approach him.

"Hey, you okay, dude?" I asked. He didn't respond. Nudging him slightly, I asked again, that time he looked up at me.

"I just want him to call me back."

"Who?" A sheepish grin spread across his face and he ducked his head down towards the floor as if embarrassed.

"My boyfriend, Francis, I really like him."

_Interesting revelation._

"Hm, I bet you do," I mumbled, taking an uncomfortable sip of beer, just to have the bottle suddenly ripped from my hands.

"You're so young, you can't have this, this is the alcohol and it's bad for you!" Arthur practically cried, looking down at the drink in his hands. "I am an adult and I can _drink_ the alcohol."

Gently prying the glass bottle out of his hands, I laughed, "I think you've had enough already, Arthur."

"How would you know, maybe I haven't had enough yet, and you're holding me back."

"From what?" He didn't come up with a response to it, instead giving me a perplexed look and glancing back down at his phone every couple of seconds.

It took about thirty seconds of this for him to say, "I'm gonna be sick." And that's how I ended up in the bathroom with him. He threw up, said something incoherent about Francis, threw up again, started a story, trailed off, started a new story, threw up, and cried because Francis hadn't called him back yet. I had checked for him when he first started vomiting and his phone was dead though he didn't listen to me when I stated that.

He eventually stood up and continued mumbling about Francis. I didn't listen to most of it though as I dumped the rest of my beer down the sink, holding the empty bottle still. Then there was a hand on my shoulder, and then another mouth on mine, and soon arms wrapped around me. My brain had trouble keeping up with what was going on. I think it all happened suddenly, briefly, and then it was all over but the memory is too foggy.

"What was that?" I asked slightly alarmed as Arthur cuddled into my chest.

"I'm lonely, Francis." I blinked at the reply. _Well, shit._

"I-I'm not Francis." Confusion. He didn't believe me and swore that I was him. I argued back that I was in fact not Francis and that Arthur was drunker than he thought. Somewhere between Arthur hugging me and us arguing, my gut did this twisty thing and then my brain kept trying to tell my arms to put themselves around him. And then when he kept insisting that I was Francis, I wanted to just agree with him so that he would give me physical affection again.

Just after that, I got this _feeling_ that kind of matched the way I felt when my family had gone to France one summer and we got to see Versailles at night. It was like being so captivated by a sight that you couldn't make yourself focus on anything but it and how it felt to be in that moment; like a thousand little fireworks were going off inside of you and you just felt giddy. And that was how I was suddenly feeling about Arthur.

The feeling didn't go away as he passed out, or as I plugged in his phone in my car, or managed to call his boyfriend. I didn't feel jealous of Francis the first time I met him, the feeling hadn't completely rooted itself yet. He thanked me and made a joke at Arthur's expense; I laughed and never mentioned what happened in the bathroom.

Arthur wouldn't be able to remember anything that happened past eight later.

And it would become all I could think about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was "Fourth of July" by Fall Out Boy, off their newest album _American Beauty/American Psycho_. It's about a summer fling where one party develops actual feelings for the other while they don't feel any sort of attachment towards the first party.  
>  The lyrics, "I'm sorry I didn't mean any of it, I just got too lonely, lonely, whoa. In between being young and being right, you were my Versailles at night" express this very well as the first half is the detached person who doesn't feel for the other, who feels the opposite.
> 
> Recommendations for what's up next are still open, feel free to drop by and leave a song.


	3. Not Together... For Now

July 15, 2005

"But, Alfred," you say in utter confusion. "If you're crazy enough to break into this guy's _house_ , then why didn't you just kidnap him and make him love you through Stockholm Syndrome? Or kill his boyfriend and eventually earn his love?"

Okay, first off, bitch _where?_ Where do you think I would hide Arthur or Francis' dead body _and_ the murder weapon? Second, I seem to have given you the wrong impression of me. I'm _perverted_ , not _insane_. There's a difference. And now you're probably thinking, "Okay...sounds fake, but okay…" and I understand why. Trust me, I know I really am not giving you much reason to think that I'm very sane. Now for third, I'm going to bring it back to my first point. I live in an _apartment_. With my _brother_. Where would I be able to hide Arthur? And do you _really_ think that I am _actually_ smart enough to get away with murder? I broke into a guy's house and got caught with that! And I have morals too! Evidently, not strong morals, but they're there!

"So you're not filled with undeniable passion for Arthur to the point where you would do anything for his love?" you now ask, a bit more confused than before.

The short, simple answer to that is: no. Curiosity, yes. But passion is a strong no. I want to explain something to you. In the time from where I first met Arthur to where I broke into his apartment, I didn't come to know him very well nor did I love him. Did I develop an overwhelming crush on him? Yes. Did that crush lead me to do some pretty stupid things? Please, refer back to Chapter One. But as you're probably guessing that's not where my stupid decisions began and suddenly ended. Well, it did end there temporarily, but it most _certainly_ didn't start.

Have you ever been around or heard about those couples who are happy with each other and as soon as they get to the even slightest bump in the road they break up but then get back together a week later? So then they're constantly on and off again and you just want to rip your hair out at how stupidly fascinated you are with their relationship. Yeah, that was kind of Arthur and Francis. Except they only broke up after knock-down-drag-out fights that were over things that it sounds like they had had disagreements on several times before. So not exactly what I was describing but you get the point.

Anyway, it was after one of those that I was walking to the grocery store about two blocks down. Arthur was leaving Francis' apartment and was on his way to the bar three blocks down in the same direction. At the time I had no idea where he was going, I just joined him out of sheer curiosity.

So we sat down at a bar, where the bartender knew him well, and talked.

"Do you want to talk about what was going on between you and Francis or are you good?"

"He's just a stubborn prick, that's all. I really don't want to lay it all on you."

"I don't mind listening," I counter just before Larry, the bartender, cut in.

"Keep him here for a couple hours and you'll be hearin' all about it." The statement was accompanied by a wink and Arthur excusing himself as his phone began to ring. Just as he walked out, Larry began blabbing to me about him and Francis, about how long they'd been dating, how this happened every once-in-awhile and how Arthur always ordered a pint of beer first before moving on to hard liquor. So as he walked back in a bit teary-eyed and angrier than before, I processed the information and decided to take Larry's advice and kept him around for about an hour. At that point, he was about as drunk as he was at the Office Party. I was too, but definitely not as much as he was, mainly because I _remember_ what happened.

Larry had kicked us out with a wink, saying something to the effect of that it would be too dark soon for us to get back safely. Though I don't remember exactly _how_ we ended up in that alleyway, all I know is that we did. Well, and that I ended up kissing Arthur with one hand up his shirt and the other in his hair. He was beyond confused.

"What are ya doin'?" he asked, pulling away from me. His eyebrows knitted together in perplexion.

"Do you remember the Office Party, cause we could do it again, let's go back and play pretend."

"What are you talking about?"

"I can be Francis again if you want me to." My heart was beating at a million miles a minute, like a stallion running at full speed. My head felt foggy like I was high and everything just seemed so right.

"What are you talking about, I barely know you and you're not Francis, he's the prick I just broke up with!"

"Then I don't have to be him," I muttered, leaning back in.

"But I can't love you! I love him!" With that Arthur pushed me away and huffed. And suddenly the stallion was broke, shattering into thousands of delicate pieces, oozing between my other organs and making everything hurt. Everything just hurt. So I quietly followed Arthur back to his apartment building, remembering the name for later use, and walking back home by myself.

Matthew was _pissed_ , but I was too drunk and heartbroken to care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You just heard, "Alone Together." If you're just tuning it, welcome to Fall Out Boy marathon, where we listen to and overanalyze songs by the band Fall Out Boy.  
> "Alone Together" off of the album from 2013, _Save Rock and Roll_ , in my opinion, is about a young, unrequited love who craves the other person so much, but as I mentioned before, their feelings are unrequited. So despite all the things the person says in an attempt to get the other to love them, they're all alone with their feelings. Maybe the follow-up of this song was in "Fourth of July" where the summer fling happens with much passion and sparks but quickly fizzles out.  
> Up next is "Jet Pack Blues" off of their newest album, _American Beauty/American Psycho_. Requests are still open. Thank you all for listening.


	4. The Rain and The Blues

July 18, 2005

There will be no Arthur in this chapter.

And trust me, I know what you're thinking. "But Arthur's been in the last three chapters! How can he not _be_ in this one? The plot of this basically revolves around him!" And some of you are even like, "I'm only reading this because I want to see more of Arthur!"

Well, tough luck. This chapter actually centrally revolves around Francis. And now some of you may be backtracking back to the thought of me killing Francis as a way to gain Arthur's affection. If y'all're actually thinking this, you're crazy. This isn't _Stadium Love_ or anything like that. No, there will probably not be any murder going down anytime soon.

Now before we actually get on with this chapter, I have to backtrack a bit. Explain some things. Give you some details I forgot about earlier. Make some shit make sense.

At the time, I had been out of high school for about five years, had gone to college for four of those, and was just getting on my feet in the real world, which was harder than it sounds like. Matt and I grew up with _hell_ -icopter parents. For example, when I entered college and moved into an apartment, my parents each made two backup keys for themselves, which resulted in them often breaking into my apartment at random just to check up on me. Now, this happened also when I lived at home so I was used to it and the few friends I had made at college thought it was really weird. In short, I sort of lack the concept of boundaries and personal space.

What ended this? Matt and I both decided to enroll in a college out of state, telling our parents the curriculum there was better and we felt as though we had more opportunity in a different community. Did we end up going there? No. Why? They refused to help pay for it and neither of us had the money to pay for tuition or any possibilities for a scholarship. We both had a falling out with them, at different times over the same matters, and they didn't loosen up, in fact, they got stricter. Then Dad got in a fatal car accident while driving drunk. Mom grieved for three months before following him into whatever afterlife was awaiting them, if any.

And Matt and I both broke free like you couldn't have imagined. For a time, Matthew was basically a stoner and I almost became an under-aged alcoholic. We went to so many parties and clubs, almost got ourselves killed so many times. I'm actually really surprised that we both made it to seeing our twenty-first birthdays. School, of course, got us out of it eventually, sobering us both up a bit. Now don't get me wrong, we did grieve our parents at some point, but we had resented them so much over the years that their deaths were basically a relief to the both of us.

Bottom line is that neither of us know how the adult world really works. We really cannot adult to save our lives.

So there's some of my life story on how I became such a fucked up human being. You've probably caught on to some of this already, probably by the fact that I don't stop making bad decisions. This chapter is about one of them.

Second, backtrack goes to Friday night. The one where I had my hand up Arthur's shirt and stuff. Just happened in the last chapter. Yeah, that one. I stole his phone. Not even gonna sugar coat it or nothing. I literally stole his phone. He was too drunk to remember anything that happened after the bar, where he handed me his phone because Francis kept calling it. I was drunk enough to think that keeping it was a good idea.

I really need to work on decision making, sober or not.

Flash forward to Monday evening. I just got off work, Matthew was just heading out to one of his classes.

"Are you going to make dinner tonight?" he asked, pulling a shoe on.

"I will if you want me to," I responded, taking a shoe off.

"You don't have to. Just order a pizza or something, really," he stated, adjusting his glasses so he could see better.

"Alright. Your class ends around five, right?" I asked, taking mine off to rub at my eye.

"Five thirty. I'm staying after to tutor someone for extra credit, so maybe around six thirty," he answered, opening the door and looking over his shoulder back at me.

"Alright, I'll call around six to have one delivered. See ya," I said, glancing at him waving at me on his way out. And then the room didn't even have time to go silent before I heard the ringing. My first instinct was to look down at my phone to see who was calling. But as the ringing continued and my phone remained virtually dead in my hand, I was struck with the sense to look for Matt's. Four rings later, I found his on the charging cord near his bed, no new messages or incoming calls. At that moment, the twenty-five seconds were up and it stopped, leaving me desperately confused on what phone it could have been. It took twenty minutes of me basically tearing the apartment apart, but I found it. There in a pile of laundry, in one of the pockets of my jeans, was Arthur's phone.

Now at the time, it didn't occur to me that it was Arthur's phone nor did I just randomly remember him drunkenly handing it to me, but I did have an "oh shit" moment when I found someone else's phone. There were about ten new voicemails and just over thirty missed calls all from a number I didn't recognize along with a scattering of other calls that were attached to actual names. Naturally, I decided to listen to the most recent message left just to figure out whose it was and then I could return it later that evening or tomorrow. And boy was it all more than I bargained for.

"Please, listen to me," it began. _Where do I know that voice?_ "I-I'm sorry. I don't know why I said any of it still." _He sounds like he's crying. Where do I know his voice from?_ "Please just pick up. You haven't answered since Friday night and… _mon Dieu._ I'm so worried about you, Arthur." _That's where. Arthur's boyfriend._ "I...please come home. I love you." And it ended there. I spent a minute or so giving my brain time to process what I had just listened to, just staring at the phone in my hand.

 _I'll have to get that back to Arthur tomorrow and apologize for listening to one of his messages,_ I thought to myself, setting the phone down on the table. I sat on the couch, stared at the blank TV, and wondered what they had been fighting about Friday night. _I mean,_ I thought, getting back up and walking back to my room. _If it was bad enough to break up over, then it has to be a bit better than anything on TV right now._ Curiosity easily got the best of me.

Message one: "Arthur, don't do anything stupid. Last time you got drunk one of your co-workers had to call me to come pick you up, remember? You had a terrible hangover the next morning. And no revenge sex this time either, okay _mon lapin_? And definitely no driving… I want you to come home eventually." _Left at 7:23 pm._

Message two: "I get it, I do. Break up with me, then slam the door, saying that you're going to the bar. Answer my call once and then leave me here to worry about you. I get it. You really do have a sick sense of humor if you're entertained by this. God, why do I bother?" _Left on Friday at 9:38 pm._

Message three: "It's two in the morning and I just thought I'd check in to ask if you made it home. Please tell me you did. Goodnight, Arthur." _Left on Saturday at 2:03 am._

Message four: "I've slept on it, and I just want to say that… I am sorry. I want to talk to you about this, so please call me when you get this." _Left on Saturday at 7:31 am._

Message five: "Arthur, this is so dumb and immature, pick up the phone." _Left on Saturday at 4:20 pm._

Message six: "I take it back. I'm being obsessive now. I'm sorry. Please just call me back and let me know that you're okay. _Mon Dieu,_ I'm so worried now. Please just… Come home please." _Left on Saturday at 6:43 pm._

Message seven: "This is all my fault isn't it. I couldn't shut up for five seconds to hear what you were trying to say and I chased you away, didn't I? Arthur, no one has heard from you since Friday, and Larry said you left with someone. Where are you? Are you okay? I'm so sorry, Arthur. I just want to hold you again. I love you." _Left on Sunday at 12:31 pm._

Message eight: "It's raining. I miss you. I'm sorry. Please just...come home, or I'm going to go see you. I-if you don't pick up or call back in the next thirty minutes, I'm just going to go to your place. I hope to see you soon." _Left on Sunday at 4:03 pm._

Message nine: "Baby, come home. I'm so sorry. I… _Merde._ I miss you. I'm outside your apartment building. I'll be here until about six, then I have to go home for the night. It's still raining and… _mon Dieu_ , Arthur. I don't know what to do to get you to answer. I don't know why you refuse to answer me. But I'm so sorry. Come home. I know that I shouldn't complain so much about little things, they really don't matter. Arthur, I'm sorry, please come home and talk to me about this. I-I'll be waiting for you when you do." _Left on Sunday at 4:57 pm._

By the ends of messages six and seven, he had started crying. His voice cracked on multiple occasions through message eight, and some sentences were difficult to make out in nine through the accent, the sound of rain, and the crying. Francis was a wreck, to say the least. And I felt terrible. Not once all weekend had I heard this phone ring. I had accidentally made Arthur dead to the world. What Arthur would think if I handed it to him tomorrow, especially after hearing the messages? Would I be able to lie and say that it died at one point and then I found it while doing laundry, charged it and only listened to the first message just to figure out to whom it belonged? He probably wouldn't buy that. God, I had royally messed up.

Pulling my shoes back on, I stuffed his phone in my pocket and descended the stairs down to the lobby. As my shoes hit the pavement, I noticed just how noisy the city was sometimes, how everything seemed to all be making noise at once and be weighing down more on my ever growing conscience as I thought over more of what I remembered of Friday night. How much more could I mess with this guy's life? First I basically tried to convince him to have a drunk one night stand with me, then I accidentally took his phone for three days causing his boyfriend to freak out and probably damaged their relationship slightly.

If Arthur wasn't able to remember the times we met, he better start because I was impacting his life in more ways than one.

After walking five blocks to the apartment building that my memory was associating with Arthur, I managed my way in, walking up the secretary in the lobby.

"Excuse me." The lady looked up at me with a smile. "Does Arthur Kirkland live here?" She asked me to give her a moment before looking at something behind the counter.

"He does indeed. Is there something else I can help you with?"

"Uh," I intelligently said, placing the phone down on the high surface. "I found his phone."

"Oh! I'll return it to him for you then! Can I get your name?"

Panicking, I stated, "Schmitty. Walt Schmitty." And I walked out of there, moving the fast as I could that wouldn't make me look suspicious.

After putting three blocks distance between me and the building, I started beating myself up for leaving so soon. I should have apologized. I should have at least made sure that he got it back. But it was too late to go back.

Time remembers everything and will never let you forget.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're just tuning in, welcome to the Fall Out Boy marathon that we have going on right now. You were just listening to "Jet Pack Blues" off of the newest album _American Beauty / American Psycho_. At the moment, we have nothing on deck so feel free to send in a request, we'd love to hear it. But or right now I'm just going to talk to you about "Jet Pack Blues."  
>  As almost a continuation of "Fourth of July," it talks about moving too fast in a relationship and ending it too quickly and now being haunted by that decision. Still, one party wants the other to come back and get back together, but the other doesn't necessarily reciprocate those feelings. Now, there's also more to that in that the first person may have died at some point after asking the second to come back, so now the second person is haunted by that decision as well. I'm...it intrigues me, that part of the meaning. I want to maybe expand on it later with some other songs and maybe we might end on a song that brings back the point of a love dying. But that largely depends on you, dear listeners and what requests you decide to send in.  
> I also haven't mention that we're also only excepting seven more songs to play and then the marathon will end. So keep those requests coming!


	5. Mmrs

Probably Not in 2005 for All You Know

Welcome back folks to _Alfred Periodically Messes Up His Life_ , with your host, Alfred F. Jones. Last we left off, I had made out with Arthur twice, stole his phone once, and made Francis cry on several occasions. But y'all probably still remember all that.

So are you ready for this? Are you sitting on the edge of your seat?

Well, then sit back a bit more, because there will be no action in this that moves the plot forward in any way. No, we're going to sit back and talk a bit more about what Alfred was like before and I guess during all this. Since everything is in short to-the-point bits, I'm going to just talk more about myself and what I'm like. You guys get a break! Free chapter to relax without worrying about anything.

So as I mentioned before, I had helicopter parents that basically tried to keep me at home forever and restricted my freedoms a lot. As I stated earlier as well, Matthew and I both resented them for that to varying degrees throughout our lives with them. Now that definitely doesn't mean that our childhoods were all bad, they were actually pretty good. We both had friends. We did well in school. We participated in sports. We both ended up breaking bones at some point or another. We had helicopter parents but they didn't really smother us until late middle school, early high school when they realized they were beginning to lose their grip on us. So overall Matthew and I were pretty normal.

"But Alfred," you exclaim once more.

"What do you want?" I want to scream back because y'all won't just let me narrate.

"If you're so 'normal,' then why-"

"Does this story exist? Yeah. Shut it and let me explain."

The two of us appeared normal on the outside as most people do. But really we were doing some freaky stuff when we knew we could get away with it. For instance, the summer before Senior year, some time after I had turned eighteen, I told Mom and Dad that Matthew and I were going to see a movie. We told them it was one of the new ones rated PG-13 and they went with it. I still don't remember what movie it was that we told them about. But Matthew and I snuck down to the business district and I found myself in the back of some shop in a basement that required ID to even get in. I bought something and we both ran over to the deserted park. And that's how Matthew and I saw porn for the first time. Great, right?

It was a pretty similar experience that led me to figure out that I liked boys and girls too. Matthew wasn't there for that one, though. Also Senior year, I had gone to a party, telling mom I was going to a friend's house--which was true--to study--which was not. Someone had brought beer, which made it the first time I had had alcohol, and at some point I ended up somewhat drunkenly making out with some guy I didn't even know in a closet on a dare. I really liked it, he didn't. It made me a bit conflicted for a while. But that's not important.

I guess I'm beginning to sound like the average popular kid, who is super cool but does a bunch of stupid stuff and ends up peeking in high school and ends up working in retail for the rest of their life. Obviously that wasn't the case, otherwise this story wouldn't exist.

"Wait, hold up, Alfred. Why are you telling us all this if it has _nothing_ to do with the story?"

Well, actually it has everything to do with Chapter One dear reader. Ah yes, this is the foreshadowing into what happened before all that. You all just need to get more background information on me before I go on to describe to you in probably vague detail what happened as I broke into Arthur's apartment.

What I just told you is basically a summary of why I thought I could get away with things if I thought them through well enough. My first mistake leading up to Chapter One. When you grow up honing your skills in lying and sneaking things past people you live with, you _assume_ that it just carries over into adulthood. To some extent, it does as I _did_ manage to break in without anyone knowing…as far as I'm aware. Well, other than Arthur and Francis of course. They know...knew...now know? I'm not sure anymore, I switch tenses so much in this that even _I'm_ lost. Have y'all noticed that I switch back and forth between talking to you all in real time and the preterite?

"Yes, just like we've noticed that there's no fourth wall in this story anymore."

Excellent observation! I spent a large amount of my late childhood and teenage years reading _Deadpool_ and that's basically the only way I know how to narrate anymore. Plus, I'm well aware that this is just a story to all of you. It's cool, I get it. It's just a distant memory to me now. It's been literally years since this all happened. But I remember it clear as day because it's how I ended up here. I'll touch base with you later on where "here" is.

Anyway, summary of what we learnt about Alfred:

  * compulsive and impulsive
  * has no idea how to adult
  * lacks the concept of personal space/boundaries
  * has the ability to sneak things past people
  * has really messed up his life somehow
  * lies a lot to himself and possibly others
  * may just be a bit smarter than he seems
  * may be a bit insane



Yup, that's me. So thanks for sharing with me these memories, guys. It really helped me get out of my head for a while and stuff. Wow, I don't even know who any of you are and yet I'm telling you all of this.

But yeah. Thanks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back once again. Happy Valentines Day to all of you listening. I apologize if I sound tired today and my analysis of the song isn't top notch as I'm functioning on solely four hours of sleep and some Valentines chocolates. We're still doing our Fall Out Boy Marathon and you just heard, "Thnks Fr Th Mmrs" off of the album _Infinity On High_. We have "27" from _Folie à Deux_ coming up soon though we may slip some other songs in between then and now. Always feel free to send in requests, we'd love to hear them.  
>  "Thnks Fr Th Mmrs" I feel is largely a song based on the narrator's regret over some past decisions. Whether this is having one night stands, or letting something hold them back from living life the way they wanted to. This regret may also be focused towards a fight that went down between two people and now there's no way that either can make up with each other due to it. But there are signs of progression and moving on from that and the beginnings of letting go of that regret though it may be with doing the exact same things that caused the regret in the first place.  
> Alright, guys, I'm excited to see where we're going to go from here with the conclusion to our Marathon and I hope to hear from more of you.


	6. Hug and Kiss XO

August 12th, 2005

 

Last time on _Alfred Periodically Messes Up His Life_ , Alfred had made out with a guy twice, stolen his phone, made his then ex-boyfriend cry and has shared with all of you way too much information on his life. So welcome back y’all, and welcome to the almost climax of the story. 

“Alfred! It’s been months and now you’re back and what do you mean almost climax--”

Shush. Just shut up and sit back and enjoy the ride. 

I had little to no contact with Arthur and Francis after the drunk kiss and the phone incident. And thus a month passed and life droned on, monotonously, and days and weeks blurred together. Until the Friday of August 12th. To those of you watching the dates at the beginning of the chapters, good job, those have been important and if you have a good memory you probably knew exactly what this chapter was going to be the moment you saw that date. 

Anyway, continuing on, I had gotten no real action for a month to feed or kill my ever growing infatuation on Arthur, but it just grew like cancer. It fed off of fantasies and those hazy memories and I lost control of it. I couldn’t just ignore it so that lonely Friday afternoon once I got home from work, it conceived a perverted idea. I had my second shoe half off, a granola bar in my mouth, and overheard Arthur on the phone at work with Francis, talking about how excited he was to go out tonight at six. 

Curiosity kills the cat, but satisfaction brings it back.

Looking up at the clock, I decided it was best to not be found around there until a good half hour after he had probably left. Just to make sure. _I can leave in forty-five minutes, it’ll be fine,_ I told myself. It would not be fine I changed out of my work clothes and into my college sweatshirt and jeans. With forty-five minutes to think it over, you’d think I would have talked myself out of it sooner, the problem was I only thought about how to get in and get out. So I had it all thought out somewhat. I wanted to just sneak into his apartment, watch him dress, see what some of his weird habits were, and then sneak back out when I was sure he was asleep. Easy. He wouldn’t ever know, and I would take this to my grave. Oh, how I wish I had planned for the worst. 

So around 6:38 I was climbing the fire escape of Arthur’s apartment building checking the windows on both sides of the alleys to make sure I was in the clear. Arthur lived on the fifth floor of a seven-floor apartment building, and I was afraid of heights.

Now, don’t give me the, “Oh Alfred, you poor baby! Here I’ll hold your hand and make you feel better!” You gotta realize that’s just weird. I don’t even know you! Plus you should be telling me, “It was a sign, Alfred! You should have turned your sorry ass around and gone home or found a tear catcher!” And, to that, I now happily agree with you! But I climbed up five stories to Arthur’s apartment bedroom window, about ready to have an anxiety attack the entire time. 

“But, wait! Alfred! You skipped over something! How did you learn which apartment Arthur lived in and how to get to it specifically?”

Good question, dear reader, and your answer is the fact that I am a fucking freak. Don’t get yourself a freak like me, you don’t need one. Get yourself a gentleman or some sweetheart who makes you pancakes just to see you smile. Really gender and actions of affection aren’t important here, just get yourself someone better than me and who treats you right, okay? But the main point here is, I volunteered to work overtime one night earlier that week and Tim left early and let me lock up and I went through the files and found Arthur’s personal information and found which P.O. box was his, and then found which room that was connected to, through a very unsuspicious phone call to the apartment building. 

Never date someone like me. Stalking isn’t cool or romantic, kids. It’s just really goddamn creepy, end of subject. 

But anyway, he left his window open, probably on accident, so I just climbed in. That was it. I climbed up and in and that was the end of it. I was expecting it to be harder. It wasn’t.

I spent around five minutes just looking around his room. There was a bed two feet away from the window, pressed against the wall. A bedside table sat next to it, just under it. He had a dresser in the other corner of the room and the closet faced his bed. Naturally, I went through the drawer of his bedside table first as it was closest. He had a box of condoms and a Bible. 

Picking it up and turning it over in my hand a few times, I thought back on how I ended up like this. My parents had raised us as Calvinists, until about seventh grade when we switched to the Reformed Christian Church that was just slightly closer to home. By high school, I turned agnostic and once I graduated I was an atheist. Matthew followed me in a similar pattern, except he went through high school agnostic, and tried a new religion every year after that, which didn’t make Mom and Dad happy for the time they got to witness it. At the time, he had just given up trying to be Buddhist. I give him credit for at least trying to root himself somewhere. I guess the same time I became an atheist was around the same time I began to lose my morals as I tried my hardest to break free. Most of my reasoning was mostly what had been what did religion ever do for me except give my parents more excuses to further limit my freedoms. 

That day I left my conscience pressed in between the Bible in the drawer. 

Putting it back, I closed the drawer, and then decided on closing the window as well. I could feel that the AC was on and Arthur more than likely didn’t mean to leave it open. It was just very convenient for me that it was open. As if fate had aligned itself just so I could terminally mess up my life. And I couldn’t have known any of that as I opened the closet and looked at all the boxes piled upon each other and the space in the middle, just large enough to be standing room. Smiling to myself, I made a mental note to keep it in mind for a hiding spot. 

From there, I made my way out to the living room and kitchen. The apartment in its entirety was abnormally clean. Now I’m not saying that it being clean was bad, it just felt off, as if it wasn’t lived in. But there was trash that needed to be taken out, and pictures on the mini fridge. There weren’t many. One was a woman I assumed to be Arthur’s mother. A few of some people who were probably related to him somehow as they looked uncannily similar to Arthur himself. And then there were so many of him and Francis. And it killed me because they looked so happy together. The picture where Francis was kissing Arthur’s cheek and he looked like he could pee himself from laughing so hard, it made me want to break something. And the one with the two of them cuddling shirtless on the couch. It was like listening to Arthur kiss and tell. All I wanted was to dig up dirt on the two of them and cause a new problem that was big enough to tear them apart for good.

But Arthur loved Francis. He still does. His love was never meant for me, it never wanted me. And I kept trying to take it anyway. I just didn’t realize that at the time, so filled with determination, I went back to Arthur’s room and stood in his closet with the bi-folding doors closed. I sat in there for close to an hour before coming to a revelation, a moment of self-realization.

And you know the rest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Welcome back to our Fall Out Boy Music Marathon. We apologize for the short break, things got a little hectic back here in the studio. What you just heard was "XO" off of _From Under the Cork Tree._  
> **
> 
> **"XO" is a song that talks largely about heartbreak and loneliness. In the song, the narrator keeps finding "tear catchers" at the bar and club scene. It talks largely of secrecy and desperation and relates back to our first sing with watching someone while hiding. It also touches on morality and awareness of our actions but not changing them.  
> **   
>  **I realize earlier that I said I was going to be playing eleven songs total for our Marathon, but now I think there's only going to be two more unless anyone has three more suggestions for me and I can figure out how to fit them in. Anyway, thanks for listening! We'll be back soon with the next tune...**


	7. I've Got (a Dark Alley and) Some Bad Ideas That Say Al Should Shut His Mouth

August 15th, 2005

 

And there it all is. That’s how we got to Chapter One. And now here’s where we talk about what happened after all of that. You get to find out what happened to me, and where I am now. I haven’t seen Arthur in probably five years now. Matthew and I no longer live in an apartment on the outer edge of Portland. I no longer work in that office. So much changed the following Monday.

I honestly did not want to go into work. I’m not joking when I say that I started crying that morning when my alarm went off. But I just had to pull myself together as Matthew had a late morning class and would be up and getting ready and I couldn’t tell him what I did. Yes, I was ashamed, and yes, I should have told him what happened. But I didn’t so, when I couldn’t fully pull myself together I told him instead that there were rumors going around at work that they were going to have to lay a few people off and it sounded like the newest would be the first to go. 

“Alfred!” he exclaimed in utter shock. “Why didn’t tell me earlier? Is that why you were out so late Friday?” I nodded, unable to look him in the eyes. He hugged me and I started crying more.

“It’s okay, Al,” he muttered in my ear. “We’ll make it work. We’ll have to make it work.” Holding me out at arm’s length, he continued, “An-and even if they do lay you off, there’s probably tons of places that would accept you. You don’t need them!” I choked out a chuckle and gave him a smile, unable to thank him for the support for a problem I wasn’t having. 

And I got ready, brushed my hair, put my clothes on, slipped on my shoes, and grabbed a cup of coffee on the way out. I walked to work like I always did, finishing my cup just as I got to the office, dropping the styrofoam into the trash. I climbed the stairs, walked past my cubicle, and knocked on Tim’s door.

“Hey, Tim, can I speak to you for a second?” I asked as I peeked in.

“Of course, Alfred! Have a seat! What’s on your mind?” he asked in an overly cheerful manner.

“Well, I, umm…”  _ What am I doing? Why am I here?  _ “You see, Friday evening, I got a call from a different company and they want me to come work for them and they’re willing to pay me forty-five dollars an hour.”  _ Why did I say that? Why do these lies just keep slipping? _

“Oh,” he mumbled leaning back in his chair and intertwining his fingers together on his desk. “I see.” He rubbed at his forehead for a moment. “You’re still new to this company so I can’t give you a promotion without it looking like I’m playing favorites if that’s what you’re here for.”  _ What am I here for? _

“I-I know, sir and I’m not. I just wanted to tell you that I’m resigning.”  _ WHAT AM I DOING? _

“I see. Is this effective immediately?”

“Yes, I have to move out to Los Angeles by Thursday.”

“I see. Well, it’s been nice working with you, Alfred,” he said as he stood up. I mimicked him. A hand was extended, and I took it. “I hope it all works out for you, otherwise, your position may still be open when you get back!” To that, he laughed heartily and sat back down. I chuckled, excused myself and left. 

No one looked up at me as I walked back to my cubicle. It was like they all knew, but no one wanted to say anything. I had only been there two months so all I had to put in the little box I still had under my desk was a calendar, a mouse pad, a cup of pens and pencils, and some whiteout. No pictures, no knick-knacks, no tissues, or hand sanitizer or anything of the sort. The computer wasn’t mine, the chair wasn’t mine, the phone wasn’t mine, and the desk wasn’t mine. 

I had just gotten the whiteout out of the drawer when a voice behind me made me jump. 

“Alfred, can I speak to you a second?” 

And I froze. My heart raced. My lungs struggled to take in air. My brain couldn’t think or process or figure out what to do. Arthur stood behind me, probably wondering how long it was going to take me just to book out of there. Looking back, I probably should have just told him I was in a hurry and not gone with him. 

As you’ve probably figured out through context, I followed Arthur to the break room where no one was currently on break at 9:53 in the morning. No part of my brain was processing anything, there was just pure panic coursing through my mind. I followed him there in a daze, waiting for my impending death. I closed the door behind us. He leaned against the refrigerator. I rubbed the back of my neck. He pursed his lips and stared at me as if I was a child who had drawn on the wall and he was trying to find the right words to let me know what I did was wrong--so, so  _ wrong _ \--and that he was angry--so, so  _ angry _ \--but he didn’t want me to cry. I take that back, he probably did want to watch me cry. More than likely he’d find great joy in it. 

“You know what about I want to talk with you, right?” he asked after a moment. 

I nodded. He nodded. 

“Yeah... what the bloody fuck, Alfred?” At least he was being blunt. 

Again, I panicked, but I think I managed to get out some stuttered, mumbled version of, “I have no clue, and I really can’t explain myself.” 

Even if he could understand it, it didn’t go over well.

“Right,” he said, drawing the sounds out, one at a time until the single word spanned three insufferable, panic-inducing seconds. Huffing, he continued, “You’re honestly so lucky that I haven’t filed a restraining order on you right now. I’m going to after work today, and you’re going to lose your job because I have to tell Mr. O--”

“Arthur, I quit this morning.” That came out clearly. He stopped. 

“You…  _ what? _ ” he exclaimed. 

“I quit,” I mumbled. Now, at this point, I recognize that he was more confused than really angry. But, he was raising his voice to a point that had me fully convinced that he was about to stab me. 

“Oh, so you thought that quitting would get you out of having to deal with this?  That if you ran away all your problems would be solved and that you could continue breaking into people’s apartments and spying on them?”

“No,” I said cautiously.

“So then why did you quit then, huh? Why?”

“I got a better offer somewhere else.”

“Bullocks,” Arthur spat. “You are a sad, perverted excuse for a person. You’re a coward! You run away from your actions with no real forethought into anything at all! Where would you even get the bloody idea that it was okay to sneak into  _ my _ apartment! That it was  _ okay _ to watch me through the closet door! How did you know  _ where _ I lived?”

“Because you told me!” I snapped. It was a lie, you and I both know that. 

Disgusted flashed across his face. “I never did!”

“Oh yeah, you did, you drunkard,” I said. He looked absolutely appalled. I continued making up a story. “Twice you got so fucking drunk that you thought through absolutely nothing. You kissed me. You let me put my hand up your shirt. You told me where you lived, you led me back there once too. Do you remember the Fourth of July Party? Or the night a month back when Francis broke up with you?” I could see his sudden guilt. “You told me you loved me, and you know what? I wanted to go see if you actually did. I wanted to surprise you, I took a shot at the hope of having trust and love with you. I was hopelessly hopefully and... And then you come home with  _ him _ and I was crushed. I gave up! I tried to just sneak out and I got caught.” 

“ _ Liar _ ,” he decided to say suddenly. “I would never,  _ ever _ do  _ anything _ like that! Even drunk! I love Francis!” 

“Then maybe you should lay off the liquor,” I stated, opening the door and walking out. He didn’t follow.  _ Why did I say that? _ Picking my cardboard box up off my desk, I made my way out without making eye contact with anyone.  _ How many people just heard all that? What’ll happen to Arthur now?  _

And I descended the stairs and went out the front doors, heading back to the apartment to tell Matthew the “bad news of me being fired.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Welcome back once again. That was "I've Got a Dark Alley and a Bad Idea That Says You Should Shut Your Mouth (Summer Song)" off of Fall Out Boy's Album, _From Under the Cork Tree_. It's a very personal song for the band as it recounts some of the things associated with Wentz's attempted suicide and references a rough time for the band. As most of their songs do on this album, it still talks largely about one night stands and desperation for love. It talks about how some things just never seem to go right, and how it's easier to just blame others. **
> 
>  
> 
> **Requests for the rest of the songs for our Fall Out Boy Marathon have been filled up! We'll be ending with "27" for all of those of you who have requested it! So don't worry, we'll get to in. In the meantime, here's "The (Shipped) Gold Standard."**


	8. A Golden Standard

August 15th, 2005  -

September 9th, 2005   

 

Sometimes, I want to quit this all and be an accountant again. My life has derailed so much and I’ve gone off the deep end really. No, you don’t get to know what is going on currently with me right now, or where I am. You can try to figure it out in the comments, though. I’d love to see how you guys think my life could have gone differently. 

“Al,” you whine. “You can’t just do that to us! We waited so long for you to come back and the last chapter just left us with so many feels--”

Yeah, well, life ain’t fair and we always gotta wait to see how things turn out. So sit down and listen. I’ll pick you back up from where we roughly left off. Back in the apartment on the corner of two busy streets in Portland. 

Matthew looked up at me as I walked in. Neither of us said anything. I sat the box down on the kitchen table, put my butt in a chair and my head in my hands. Matthew ran a hand through his hair, took his glasses off, and scrubbed at his eyes. I just stared at the floor, considering whether or not to be honest with him or to keep up the “I got fired” lie. 

“What are we going to do now, Al?” he whispered to me from across the table. 

“I… We could move. Try to see if I can find work elsewhere, or if your credits will even transfer.” He said nothing, so I continued, “I would like to stay and just see how long we can last, but my last paycheck will only pay for a month of rent, and what we inherited from Mom and Dad can get you through the last year, but won’t keep us in the building.” 

“I could get a job too,” Mathew suddenly suggested. 

“No,” was my automatic response.  _ God, what have I done? _ “If anything, I’ll take on two jobs. You focus on getting through your last year of school, then worry about finding work.” 

“But I can--”

“Matt, no, I’m the one who’s supposed to be working here and worrying about bills, not you. You just need to graduate.” The conversation ended there. Basically later that night, I found an almost dead Internet Cafe in a sketchy part of town and looked at job openings in L.A. since I had that in my head. Nothing much came up so I went with the next thing I could think of: Las Vegas. I brought it up to Matthew later that night and said that there were a few openings for accountants. 

He applied to the University of Nevada, and of course got in. He got his credits to transfer too. I hated uprooting him like that, he had friends and a life in Portland. The world should have at least cut him some slack. This was my problem, not his. But he went with it. 

We moved out the 28th, found a cheap, rundown apartment in the outer part of town. It was going to just be temporary. I went to interview after interview for multiple companies. There was always someone more qualified. I slowly became desperate, but never told Matthew about it. 

Then the first Monday in September, I got a call from a number I didn’t recognize. I jumped on it, thinking it was the diner with the busboy opening I had applied for.

“Hello, this is Alfred Jones.”

“Alfred, it’s me, Arthur.” 

“Oh my god,” you all suddenly scream. “Arthur has returned and he’s going to apologize and say that he broke up with Francis and that he actually loves--”

No, no that is most definitely not what happened. Do not jump to conclusions like that, please and thank you. 

“I guess you actually did have a job offer in Los Angeles,” he continued. “And I spoke with Francis, and I suppose that maybe there were some grains of truth to what you said about… my drinking problem.” 

I said nothing. 

“I… I didn’t tell him that, apparently, I  _ kissed _ you. But I… Are you even there? Am I literally just talking to myself right now?”

“No, I’m here, I was just waiting for you to finish.”

“Oh, well, um… You should know I filed a restraining order on you.”

“Wouldn’t expect anything less,” I said with a laugh. He didn’t think it was funny. So, I tried again.

“Don’t worry, you can tell Francis that I’ll leave you alone.” He huffed. 

“I still think you’re a sick person even if you maybe weren’t lying to me. Goodbye.” There was a click on the other end of the line. 

“Goodbye, Arthur,” I said.

The world isn’t fair. It can take everything you have, and it’ll continue taking even when you think you have nothing left. I got to the point where I continued blaming everything on the world. The world, life, was the source of all my problems. It got old. I got more desperate. Until September 9th, when I applied for one last job. One last ditch effort at getting income. I had no prior experience in it, no former training. I was just desperate. 

And I got the job. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look who's back. So yeah, it's been like two years now since I last updated so I'm not going to try to keep up the fake radio show host thing I had going on for a lot of this. I wrote this chapter two years ago or so now and I have grown as a writer since then. I am going to try my best to finish this fic, but no promises. I have three AP classes this year and a lot of extracurriculars so it'll be what it is. Anyway, here's this. Enjoy.


	9. Spinning For You

September 30th, 2005 -

July 23rd, 2006

 

So I realize since the beginning that I have been telling you that the opposite of those magically perfect happy endings that you usually find in fanfiction is not what you get with this. Like even with angst, it all resolves itself in the end and the narrator or main characters are happy. Well, I can try my best to make the end of this feel satisfying and complete, but I may have to end up lying to you.

“Oh, Alfred,” you cry. “What’s happened to you?”

Life, dear audience, life.

“Well, you have a job at least now,” you suggest, probably in some attempt to make me remember the positives and make me feel better.

Well, I can’t beat around the bush anymore. I ended up becoming a male stripper.

Yes, yes, laugh it up now, fantasize about it all you want. The point is, it kept the electricity on and food on the table. I never told Matthew, until much later, but he figured it out eventually. Really, I guess it was obvious. What other job sends you home with about $200 each night?

“But, Alfred!” you exclaim. “You’re a _male_ stripper! You wouldn’t be making as much as _female_ strippers!”

Well, you’re forgetting a very important part of this story: I am a male stripper in _Las Vegas_ . Do you know how many drunk bachelorette parties come through those doors? And do you know how many mistake tens for ones? Actually not many on the second part, but yeah, it makes good money. Well, it did once I figured out what I was doing. The first few weeks were...rough to say the least. But eventually, you get the hang of it. You get more comfortable in your own skin with so many eyes on it, eating up the sight of you. But I had to leave everything there. I couldn’t go home to Matt and tell him what I had been doing all night, to tell him where all the money was coming from. Especially later on. He believed some lie I weaved about a night secretary job for some big company nearby. I probably would have been making more if that were truly the case. I’ll be honest, I wouldn’t’ve been able to get Matthew through college on that pay. Heck, we were barely making ends meet! I would have had to try and pick up a second job elsewhere, but, fortunately, I met _him_.

He was a regular bear that showed up at the club every Friday at 10:13 on the nose. I didn’t notice him so much at first. He had his favorites and barely paid attention to me for the first month that I worked there. At some point, he apparently even asked one of my coworkers, “Why did they hire the fish? He flops like he has no feet and cannot breathe.” Gotta admit it kind of hurt.

Nonetheless, by November I had finally piqued his curiosity and there he was, sitting right in front. His purple gaze burned my skin as he stared me down, stoic and unsettling. I went through my routine all the while he just stared, barely blinking. Afterwards, I asked one of my coworkers I knew he was fond of if he was always like that. He was. He was evaluating me. Seeing if I was worthy. Turns out, he was crazy wealthy and would often leave his favorites hundred dollar bills. For the next week, I watched for him, hoping that I hadn’t screwed up that first night. Thankfully, night after night, he would eventually end up sitting right in front of me, purple eyes piercing my skin. It was Friday, November 25th when I finally saw one of those hundred dollar bills land in front of me. I nearly cried.

Over the next year, he became more obsessed with me. One night he was outside the club, waiting for my shift to end so he would talk to me. He gave me thirty dollars for my name and another twenty to get coffee with him. I knew I technically wasn’t supposed to agree to it, but I’m a sucker for bribes. The first coffee date was strange. Ivan cleaned up strangely well in his tight fitting long sleeve tucked into jeans and paired with an old scarf. He smelled of stale cigarettes and lavender. I had barely heard him speak before that and hadn’t noticed his fading Russian accent. The smell of vodka wafted from a flask as he poured it into his espresso and downed it all in one go. I nearly left right then and there, but then he slid me a twenty so I stayed.

And that’s how it began. In the morning we would get brunch and at night I would spin for him. To quote him, watching me was like, “listening to a song stuck in my head or hearing your favorite old record play.” By the summer of 2006, I was his favorite record, spinning and spinning for him. At that point, his obsession with me had gotten intense. He somehow found the apartment where Matthew and I were living and demanded that I go on a trip with him. I agreed to keep Matthew from worrying.

I was off work that night and so he took me out driving. Miles and miles of earth stretched outside the windows as he drove us out of the city and suburbs and into nowhere. He parked the car out in that dry universe, worlds away from the strip club and the apartment and Portland. Silently, he turned to me, fingers just barely under his dirty pink scarf. “Do you want to see?” The question carried more weight than I knew.

I nodded.

Slowly that tattered piece of cloth unraveled from his neck, revealing the layered scar tissue underneath. I was horrified. “I did it to myself, many years ago, when I was young and couldn’t see past the pain of the present.” I nodded, unable to process his words for what they truly meant. That’s when he leaned over and put his mouth on mine. Unlike a year ago when Arthur had done something similar, nothing sparked alive inside me. I closed my eyes and let him kiss me, knowing I’d be paid later. I was.

July 23rd, 2006, out in the middle of nowhere, we made it official. Ivan was my sugar daddy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so I'm going to try my best just to get this done. It's certainly not going to be the best thing I've ever written, but I feel like I owe it to you guys who are reading this and enjoy it. I'm fully aware that I'm not putting forth my best effort here, but it's just for fun. Please, if you like this at all or have any suggestions or if you hate what I'm doing with this now, feel free to comment.


End file.
